Music Marketing Project {Pt. 2}

     The Research

    The first thing my group did while we were assigned our music marketing project and had reviewed the rubric, was pick what song we wanted to use for our music video. We decided to choose "The Man" by the Killers because we all thought we could do a very fun campaign and music video to go with it. After that, we set up a schedule for us to follow so that we'd be able to stay organized and get the whole project finished before the day it was due. 

{Image of research chart used for project}

    From there, we began to do research within our genre, alternative/indie music. We decided to first find two artists who fall under the alternative/indie genre who have released an album within the last five years, find the record labels they were signed to, then find two more artists from each record label. In this specific case, we decided to research the Arctic Monkeys and the marketing tactic for their 2022 album The Car, and Owen Pallet and his album Island (2020), who were signed to Domino Recording Company. And from RCA Records, The Strokes and their album The New Abnormal(2020), and Steve Lacy and his 2022 album Gemini Rights. 

    While conducting our research, we made sure to get as much information as possible on how these artists market their music, and what they do to interact with their audience because we wanted to make sure we knew how to market our band within the alternative/indie genre appropriately, as well as get some inspiration from various marketing tactics. We found that the artists we researched use very similar, if not the same, tactics in marketing and audience interaction, spare from a few instances where they did something else like creating an email newsletter like the Arctic Monkeys.

The Brainstorming

    Once the research was completed, the next step in our plan was to discuss and brainstorm our band, their campaign, and the music video. We all had varying ideas for what to do for the music video, and our first thought was to do a music video inspired by decades like the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s since the song we had chosen gave us a "vintage" sort of vibe to it. This idea stuck for a while, however, we were having trouble building a brand off of this idea, not to mention we didn't even have a name for the band yet. This was when we took a step back and decided to start with the band's overall campaign. 

{Cover photo for single "The Man"}

    While trying to think of ideas that we could use as the band's sort of purpose, my head immediately went to the Spice Girls, and how they each went by a different name. Then I remembered a girl group I had discovered on TikTok called Boys World and how their whole concept was that even though they each had very contrasting aesthetics and come from different backgrounds, they are still all able to come together to do something they love, which is creating music. When brought up to the group, we all agreed that we wanted some form of gimmick that an actual band could use and build from. We took a look at the lyrics to "The Man", and noticed the song seemed to depict a self-centered, cocky person. This was when we got the idea to create a band based on the seven deadly sins. 

  The idea was that each album the band would create would be themed around one of the seven sins: pride, gluttony, sloth, wrath, lust, greed, and envy. The first album would be themed around the cardinal sin of pride be called "Vainglory" and would include the band's first-ever single "The Man." With that, we had a gimmick for our band and one that can help draw the attention of teenagers and young adults within our target audience. All we needed was a name, and after going through a few different options, we decided to name the band Seven Sevens with an upside-down "v" in "sevens".

{Story board of music video}

 The music video of the Seven Sevens's first single would, of course, visually depict the sin of pride. The idea was to have the frontman of the band portray a cartoonishly self-absorbed and cocky person by doing things like kissing a photo of himself, throwing money away like it's nothing, and even writing himself into the Bible. Along with that, we wanted to make sure to include shots of the band playing together, and goofing off since this would be their first music video. We felt that it was important to show audiences within that same music video that the band was "down to earth" and were able to just laugh and have a good time. We also wanted to have a distinct look, so while the frontman wore an oversized dark suit to make his pridefulness seem a bit more ridiculous, the other band members wore bright-colored blazers. We kept a similar aesthetic to our original idea of the decades and based the wardrobe and even some of the props on the 80s.

Production and Post-Production

{a photo of all group members on the second day of filming}

    The actual filming of the music video took two days. On the first day, we filmed at one of the group member's houses, and the day was spent mainly getting shots of our frontman playing the self-absorbed character. While filming one of us noticed a really cool-looking yellow van that we thought would look good in our music video, so we asked the owner if we could get a few shots in front of the van, to which he obliged. On the second day, we filmed at a park, where we got shots of the band "playing" the song on the drums, bass, and guitar with the lead singer singing at the front. This is also where we got shots of the band members dancing around and lip-syncing to the song, as well as pictures that would be used for Seven Seven's social media and a cover for the song. Once filming was done, we had three days to get the video edited and the presentation of the campaign finished.

The Presentation

{screenshot of the merchandise slide}

    For our presentation, we needed to make sure to incorporate all aspects of our campaign as well as the music video. We made sure the presentation itself fit the aesthetic we were trying to go for, which was the 80s inspired. Within the presentation itself, we included information about the alternative/indie genre, information about how we structured our campaign, examples of merchandise, and Seven Sevens' social media pages. We wanted to make sure we covered every base when it came to the campaign and that we made sure there was little to no detail spared. We even included locations for a possible tour after the band's first album comes out. Before actually presenting the project, we made sure to split up the presentation so we all knew what each of us was saying, and even wrote out notecards of what we were going to say so that the presentation would go more smoothly.

Final Thoughts

    Overall, this project is absolutely my favorite that I've done during my entire high school career. I learned so much about what it takes to put together even a small production, like part of a music video, and how much time and energy goes into planning a marketing campaign. This project also made me realize how important research is, especially in our case where we were creating a band and its entire brand from the ground up. You don't realize how much you learn from simply observing and taking note of what others have done before you and what others are currently doing until you actually put it into practice. 

    I think the overall planning aspect and ironing out even the little details before actually moving forward with the project will absolutely help me with my portfolio project. The ability to take inspiration and use the example of others while still making something completely our own like my group did with the gimmick idea with Boys World and the Spice Girls, as well as the artists we researched will be of great use for my portfolio project, and any future project for that matter.